From: Mike Ingle <MIKEINGLE@delphi.com>
Date: Sun, 19 Sep 93 19:25:57 PDT
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Cryptophone
Message-ID: <01H35CYYEGKY91WN6Y@delphi.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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Where is the cryptophone project? I haven't seen anything about it for a
while. Last I read, a company had a commercial triple-DES product with no
public key - has anyone seen this? How is the sound quality? The cryptophone
is the best way to drive a stake through the heart of Clipper.

Suppose someone writes a crypto program and gives it to some friends. One of
the friends uploads it to a BBS. Someone calls up from a foreign country and
downloads it from the BBS. Who is at fault? The person who wrote it, for not
retaining control over his product? The friend who uploaded it, for placing
it where a foreigner could access it? The operator of the BBS, for not
screening the file and preventing the foreigner from downloading it? Or the
foreigner himself, who is probably out of range of U.S. law in any case?

Suppose someone writes a crypto program and makes it generally available to
anyone who wants it. It goes out of the country, but there is no way to know
who sent it out of the country or how. Can they prosecute the person who
wrote it for not maintaining control over it? If they can, this means, among
other things, that selling the Norton Utilities to someone without checking
to see that they are a citizen is illegal, and that having PKZIP on your BBS
is illegal. If the precedent gets established that the person who writes
such a program is responsible for keeping it out of the hands of foreigners,
that would be a big problem. All crypto would have to be published
anonymously, because nobody could risk signing their name to it.
This must not happen!

The flamewar going on here is counterproductive; they must be laughing down
at the fort.              --- MikeIngle@delphi.com